Man convicted of first wife's murder, killed spouse, stepson and family pets

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WILMETTE, Ill. — A man who shot his wife and stepson to death in their Illinois home last month before killing himself left a note saying, "I could not fight off the suicide dreams."

Police on Thursday released a 43-page handwritten journal and note by Richard Wiley, 54, who also stabbed his first wife to death more than two decades ago.

Wiley wrote the note Feb. 28 after killing his wife, Kathy Motes, 50, and 17-year-old stepson, Christopher Motes. They were shot to death in the family home in Wilmette.

"I'm not going back to prison," he wrote. "So I know the final chapter is now written. What started as my problem turned into a larger situation."

He had been convicted of stabbing his first wife, Ruth, to death in 1985. At his murder trial, Wiley said he suffered from a mental disease called "intermittent explosive disorder," but the judge rejected his insanity claim. Wiley was sentenced to 30 years and paroled in 2000. He and Motes, a church office worker, were married a few months later.

'I'm so sorry'The suicide note was released after the Chicago Tribune filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

He also wrote about struggling with bipolar disorder and complained that few people visited him after he broke an ankle 20 months earlier.

In some ways, he seemed more upset over having killed the family pets than of killing his wife and stepson. Of one cat, he wrote, "when I stabbed her she looked again. This one hurt me deeply."

Divorce plannedDavid Motes, Kathy Motes' brother, told the newspaper the note showed "how narcissistic this gentleman was. Everything revolved around him." He said his sister had tried to help him but things had gotten so difficult she was planning to divorce him.

The murder weapon, found by Wiley's body, was a black-powder, muzzleloading Civil War replica rifle. It may have belonged to Christopher Motes, a Civil War buff, police said.

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